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« on: April 11, 2013, 02:50:23 am »
“INCOMING!” We heard the scream of the shells before the double impacts, twin heavy flak cannon rounds striking an artillery encampment 200 meters behind me, the rounds stored near the heavy guns cooking off with a third explosion that sent the world into a gray colored and ringing mix of violent shaking and the sudden need to vomit.
Third company, second platoon Arashi Desert Asps, we were stuck in along a rocky finger above the wastes engaging a battalion of Guild Brass hats that had been advancing under the cover of an artillery battery miles away.
The shots had not been very accurate, bless the maker, Guild technology not prepared for the harsh Arashi desert, the biting sand likely gumming up the firing mechanism. Yet they had found their marks in the last hour, and the shots had been getting closer and closer.
The crack of a shot whizzed past my ear, the sudden shout of Brass hat foot sloggers charging over the ridge to the north bringing me out of my daze as I became keenly aware of my vulnerability out in the open.
Diving to the ground I crawled quickly into a trench works next to a line of troops in long desert coats firing away with quick action closed bolt rifles, acing targets from a distance over 150 meters out with iron sights through dust and sand blown about by wind and the sudden barrage.
For some reason I decided to grab up my scope and take a look through it, noticing the advancing file had donned leather gas masks with sophisticated guild re-breathers. Now why would they... It dawned on me seconds before the canisters started to fall in front of and into the trenches, but a quick shout down the line had been time enough for the alarm to go up, a loud hand cranked siren warning declaring MOPP 4 had saved the vast majority of them from a horrid death from mustard gas that filled the trenches with an orange mist.
“FIX BAYONETS!” Came the order down the line, my hand fumbling for the spear of metal that fitted on an anchor on the bottom of my rifle before bringing the Finland Mk25 up around to crack a shot into the torso of a screaming Brass Hat only meters away, quickly followed by a swarm of gold coated infantry with their cruel thin scimitars and one handed carbines, shooting and swinging like a horde of bees descending on desert foxes in their holes.
My world became one of blood, screaming and horror as I committed one atrocity after the next, tearing the re-breather from one trooper to bury his face in the mustard gas that had gathered in the trench before loosing my rifle to a back handed saber slash, moving to my belt knife and jamming it to the hilt into the Brass Hat's throat before pushing him off, taking up his carbine and shooting another in the back.
I could see the company flag rise up in the swirling sands, riddled with bullet wholes yet proudly standing around a ring of rallying fighters, a coiled up desert asp, it's eyes afire and mouth agape as it struck out. That simple sight brought up within me a power I cannot readily describe, hope? Anger? Rage?
It didn't matter, I was killing Guilders, the Arashi Jihad had been long to push the profiteers from our lands and our victories had been to little, to few, and always bitterly won. I pulled my second dagger across the hamstring of another merc running along the trench line above me, pulling him down into the mud and blood, plunging my blade repeatedly through the soft tissue under the rib cage before stomping on his face and emptying the carbines clip in a knot of fighters that had gotten stuck in a trapped offshoot of the trench works.
When I finally managed to into the arms of my fellow Asps I couldn't recall how many I'd killed, or how many of my comrades own bodies I'd stepped over to get there. I just kept pulling the trigger, advancing forward in some kind of reckless counter charge that had risen a berserker's rage deep in the blood of all the men and women of the unit.
Before I knew it we were in the enemies ranks, stabbing and fighting, any kind of cohesion becoming lost in the blood lust that had consumed the troops as they went to the butchers work of slitting the throats of the wounded and lame before turning on the ammo caches and cooking them off in a hail of fire and light.
There must have been some direction in the fighting, our own sergeants leading the charges into critical areas as officers used the momentum to full effect, pushing the enemies charge down their own throat while sowing discord and panic across the superior forces battle lines.
Later I was to discover that a pair of Goldfish airships had torn through the enemies defenses during a daring raid, having intercepted intel that the overall commander of the Guilds forward forces would be on a borrowed Yesha Pyramidion, inspecting the new ship that was suppose to turn the tides of the war while he watched from an elevated position his ground forces crush the 'paltry force of desert rats' that had stalled the advance.
With the Lt. General dead communications had fallen apart as in, typical Guilder fashion, the senior officers squabbled for control over the ground and air forces. Our own Commander had taken the initiative to spend the lives of his men causing the most discord and panic he could, moving to the field himself and raising the banner in a desperate counter attack, moving up all the reserve units to punch a ragged hole right through the middle of the Brass Hat ranks. The following carnage was unspeakable, hundreds killed thousands as a panic gripped conscripted and hired mercenaries that had not the will to die for a strip of sand in a place far from home. Their Guilder officers were murdered during the retreat, yet the Asp knows no mercy, the desert gives no quarter. They where gunned down by their own machine gun nests as they fled out into the desert, their water rations destroyed, the precious liquid scattered out on the sands so even the survivors would succumb to exposure and dehydration.
We took their guns as prizes, their heads as trophies and watched from afar as the horizon glowed with fire, the artillery batteries miles away torched by Arashi Goldfish that had themselves scored a cruel victory over their guilder counterparts.
We left the corpses for the desert, as was proper, and began the process of identifying our own dead and securing our new forward position. Sitting on a box of ammo I watched out across the desert, a half moon bathing the dunes with a twinkling sparkle that looked like little jewels reflecting the starlight above. I barely perceived a body move in behind me, my attention so fixed on the sands ahead that I nearly jumped out of my skin when he spoke. He was short, with a broad featured face that was pitted and leathery. I couldn't see the color of his eyes in the dark, yet they were still piercing, holding me fast like a mouse beneath a cats paw, “You fought well today son”. He said, and finally my eyes found the rank insignia on his color, the red sash across his chest that denoted lordship, the Lord Commander himself, David.
“T-thank you sir”, I managed to stammer as he came up on the foot rise with me, looking out over the desert much in the same way I had been. His face lost its hardness for a moment, and his tone softened as he seemed to remember some fond memory, “ What's your name son?” He asked, turning to look at me again, which I'm glad the chill night was cooling my skin from breaking out into a terrible sweat, so nervous was I.
“Richard-Timothy my lord”, I said, using the formal title though no actual lordship was recognized in the league.
“Ah he said,” and I could sense his smile, though I couldn't see it, my eyes focused straight ahead out into the sands, again thankful that the night masked the rising color in my face. “So your the infamous Dick Tim”. My head fell in shame, the name had become something of a company joke in the months since I had joined, a name I had been cursed with since birth due to a loosing bet my father had with a brother. That was me, the family joke. “Well Richard, if I had a hundred more soldiers like you, we'd win this war tomorrow. So chin up, and keep your eyes sharp, I'll be keeping an eye on your progress.”
“Aye sir!” I said, feeling much improved from the ego boosting, setting to my watch with something of a renewed vigor, still feeling the warmth of pride in my chest after I was relieved to a hole in the trench wall to curl up and go to sleep.
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